


Still Ill

by Beech27



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Guilt, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape Recovery, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:53:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5480594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beech27/pseuds/Beech27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some mages insist that all wounds emit light of a kind, visible only to the sensitive. After all, if you can see it, you can heal it. While the former might be true - who can trust the words of mages? - the latter assuredly is not. Some wounds are too severe, their bright light illuminating in fathomless depths things that cannot be removed, causing wounds that can never be healed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Ill

**Author's Note:**

> An interpretation of the aftermath of A Bitter Pill. Please heed the trigger warning and tag. Nothing explicit occurs here; but trauma is omnipresent.

He had called him a handsome man. The man, Hawke, now awake - but only just - rolling over in bed to face him.

Fenris stands by the fire, dressed already. He is armed and armored. It is not enough to keep him safe, though. Not from this. It never is. He feels the assault, and he would be afraid - should be, probably - except that there is a pattern to this. There is something new, however, in what bleeds out. He filters. Sifts. Recoils.

“Was it that bad?” Hawke asks.

It was... not so bad. Not bad at all. It was-

No.

No.

The perfumed, dry kiss of an excellent red; the crunch of an enemy's punctured armor, then the subsequent gasp; the soft, ambient sunrise and syrupy cold of the first morning following his escape...

But to describe those things? To describe this thing?

It was… the words aren’t there.

Unknowable. Ephemeral. A thing without precedent.

But he tries. Says something. Something insufficient. Something wrong. Because there are words, words he is evading, dodging while grasping at others, at anything else. But they are a deluge, and he is crushed beneath them.

“I began to remember my life before,” he says.

The memories, bleeding out. Grasping at them. But they are mere shadows, impressions of experiences. His vision of them is fleeting, but the feelings are tactile, the impressions visceral. And so, when he looks at a man who swells desire within him, he feels those hands, cold sometimes, warm others. Hears his voice, pretending at permission.

The first time: _Is this good or bad?_ Simple. Then: _Is this too warm? Too cold?_ Simple too. As one speaks to a child. But he learns. Learns to say that it is good, that anything is - to offer, even. Learns to acquiesce to some degree of pain, humiliation. He feels the hand strike him, feels his gait altered; next time, he can walk, at least.

He learns. Learns even as he becomes valuable for other things, as his body grows into a tool for violence. Even as his value increases, such that injury simply would be impractical. Still, he remembers. His legs remember those first faltering steps.

Would that he were fallow. Numb. But there is always this. A deep-seeded, lingering pain, waiting only to be reaped.

His mouth is overwhelmed with bitter, salty, sour, like spoiled fish. He spits on the floor. He flinches from the blow to come, the reprimand that he never, ever-

He begins to find the shape of an apology.

But Hawke does not demand one. Says nothing. 

But he has seen all of this leaking out of him, must have, must know.

Shame. Shame like bad liquor, fermenting these years in his gut. Festering. Shame that he had not left. Shame that when people asked, he could say only that the notion did not occur to him. When freedom isn’t possible, it isn’t pursued. _So why not say no? You were a warrior. And a strong one._

Well. How to explain? How to say that no matter how much one fears the night, they cannot presume to command the sun to stay at its zenith? Some things are immutable, inevitable, simply are.

They smile, then. A pitying smile, as one directs at a child with a scabbed knee. They smile and they do not speak, because the words hiding behind their cruel lips would tempt his blade, and they are not - or are not usually - so foolish.

But he can feel the words, find the shape of them and sense the accusation. _You did not leave, did not even fight back, therefore-_

He silences it there. Because he can’t stand to hear more, yes, but also because he knows what follows. _You submitted. You asked. You desired._

He cannot find it within himself to deny this. He can fight anything else, will stand before twenty men and tear them to pieces. Perhaps, on some blessed day, they will cut him down. But this, now, he cowers before. This makes him truly ill, near to vomiting. Makes him wish to tear the lyrium from his own flesh. But then, what would he be?

What is he except scars and shame? Not his own desires. They never were. There were only ever those of his master.

And there was pain when he failed to consider them. Sometimes, pain when he succeeded. He feels these scars too, fears they are emitting some light of their own. Hawke’s eyes, reading them now, seeing where his flesh had been weak. Where, when rent, gashed, and splintered, the cold/warm hands had settled, had pieced him back together.

_You need me, Fenris. I don’t want to hurt you. I'm sorry. But you understand, don't you? Understand why I have to do this? Understand how I honor you by doing this? Don’t you see how good I am to you?_

This, he knows to be a tactic. But the words are affecting even still, are as a lingering curse. And perhaps - because who could say otherwise? - they are precisely that. Perhaps he needs, will always need, some hands to put his shattered self together, to hold the trembling pieces in the shape of an elf. The cracks are clear enough. He is a warped puzzle, a collection of distorted pieces with no permanent solution. He will always eventually come apart. 

Hawke sees this. Sees how he fits together, how he comes apart, and why. He must. Hawke who is gazing at him, eyes full of affection and expectation and-

Beautiful words for beautiful sentiments, but even a slave can be appraised, and found valuable.

Hawke could not want him. Not if he knows. Not if he truly understands.

Still, there is an explanation. An attempt. _Please understand, you aren’t him. Please understand, I didn’t really want that. I couldn’t. Couldn’t conceive of want. Couldn’t conceive of any independent action. I had no choice._ And yet. The words in his mouth are tainted, stained by his shame. He cannot show them, cannot present them. No matter what he says, the truth will be on them, illuminated further by the bright light of his wounds.

And then Hawke would know that as well. Would see him for what he was. What he is, because scars do not truly vanish. He would wonder. _Am I a master to replace his old? Does he truly want to be with a man, with me, or his he simply following a path from which he cannot deviate? When he touches me, and I him-_

It is better to say nothing. There is no explanation. Not one that wouldn’t drive Hawke away. And to keep him - to keep him without one, under false pretenses, would be to violate him.

_I am broken._

To say as much is to invite rejection. To say otherwise is to invite discovery, and then rejection.

It’s a fool’s choice, and he will not make it.

“I can’t.”


End file.
